SHELL POINT, S.C. — A Beaufort County couple reports some of their personal items stolen in a burglary, including hundreds of dollars in women’s underwear.
The burglary happened on Dogwood Street in the Shell Point community on Thursday afternoon. The couple believes it happened during daylight hours while they were at work.
They report $200 in Victoria’s Secret underwear stolen, and makeup, the woman’s wedding rings, a tablet and some ammunition was also stolen.
The personal items targeted has victim Erica Chappell hurt and concerned.
“It’s very creepy. It’s very bizarre. It’s very unsettling, um, just the things that they took,” Chappell says. “It’s just different, not your typical targeted things when people come in looking to take things from a house.”
Chappell says she was at work on Thursday, when her husband told her the news over the phone. He found a wooden post at the driveway bent over, the front door ajar. The family has a dog, but he was caged at the time it all happened.
Once inside, Chappell says the bedroom was found ransacked. Sheets were ripped from the bed, pillow cases gone. She says it’s an uneasy feeling to recall the scene.
“I didn’t get any sleep last night. Every little noise woke me up…I said, that really bothers me. I said, I’m sleeping in a room that some strangers were in not even a couple of hours ago,” she says.
She’d like to have her wedding ring back. As for the underwear, she’s bewildered at what someone could want with them. She’s suspicious the thief may have been someone she knows, or someone who has been watching her house.
“I’m thinking it either was a female who did it or it was for maybe a girlfriend or wife or something, even somebody who was getting ready to be proposed to?” she says.
“It’s unusual that we have a case where a woman’s underwear is targeted for theft. So, this burglary at Shell Point yesterday is kind of alarming, we may be looking for a sexual deviant or somebody with a fetish,” Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Captain Bob Bromage says.
Chappell feels it’s a piece of her in someone else’s hands, but she just wants neighbors and others to be aware of suspicious activity in the area.
“You know, it makes you wonder.”
Investigators say neighborhood watch is a good idea, and to be alert, even during the day. They say extra patrols can be requested, and if anyone notes anything suspicious or out of the ordinary, to contact law enforcement.
